For a few seconds the star wore a ring of incredible thinness. A tiny narrow band of soft green circled the black sphere, revealing a last, hopeless grab for a ship safely out of its reach. Forever out of its reach.
Then the green ring contracted, shrunk in on itself, to become a single bright, emerald blob of incandescent life - an amorphous mass of now harmless malevolence.
"You can let go now, Captain," said Spock gently.
"Let ... go...?" Kirk mumbled. His eyes glazed. Spock reached over and gripped the captain's wrists. They pulled easily but that death grip was not so simply broken. Spock reached around more firmly and pulled, pulled again, hard. This time both hands came free of the controls.
Kirk slumped in Spock's arms, unconscious. The second-in-command of the Enterprise carried his captain over to the command chair. Sulu immediately put the helm on automatic and took over the warp-drive controls, his hands safely encased in a pair of thick protective gloves. He brought the Enterprise down from emergency to normal cruising speed.
McCoy had been waiting. Spock watched him at his work. When he spoke, his tone was as emotionless as ever - and as lucid, curious.
"Well, Doctor?" McCoy was already working with a second kind of spray, then rapidly applying some white cream to Kirk's hands - those blackened, terribly burned hands. The cream hardened instantly to an almost plastic consistency. He smiled just a little.
"I don't find any serious nerve damage, Mr. Spock. Nothing that won't repair itself. As for the skin, that's easy to regenerate. Oh, someone will have to feed him for a few days, but other than that..." He smiled wider. "He'll be as good as new."
Sulu, Uhura, and Scott all turned away - so that no one else could see how relieved they were. McCoy moved to the nearest intercom, which happened to be the one in the command chair, and thumbed the switch.
"Sick Bay? Doctor McCoy here. I want a medtable on the bridge, double-time."
Spock was watching Kirk. The captain's eyes fluttered as both anesthetic and stimulants took effect.
"Is it ... it ... gone?"
"Affirmative, Captain." At moments like this Spock almost wished he could smile - but only for the therapeutic effect it would have on Kirk, of course.
"It left the ship when it thought we would crash into the negative stellar mass. In the end it seems that the alien's instinct for self-preservation, even after all these millennia, was stronger than its analytic abilities. If it had gambled and stayed with us another few seconds it would still be with us. Now it is trapped back there once more.
"And now that we know it is there, we can enter its description, dangerous characteristics, and location with Starfleet, so that any other exploring vessels that visit this sector can give it a wide berth."
The elevator door dilated, and a pair of medical techs with a mobile medtable between them entered. Under McCoy's direction they lined it up parallel to the command chair. Both techs gave a little start when they saw that the patient-to-be was the captain, but McCoy reassured them.
"It's all right Darrell, Elayne - nothing too serious."
Kirk eyed the medtable and then shifted his gaze to the face of the good doctor.
"What's that for, Bones? I'm all right. You just said so yourself."
"I know, Jim. There's nothing wrong with you at all that a pair of new hands won't fix." He patted the table. "Be a good boy and climb aboard without forcing me to tranquillize you, hmmm? I will if I have to, you know."
"Okay, okay! Don't threaten me, Bones."
"Threaten, Jim?" McCoy grinned.
With the help of the two techs and Spock, Kirk slid onto the table. The table was convoyed to the elevator.
"Wait a minute, Mr. Spock - Captain," Uhura broke in. McCoy froze the elevator open. Her brows drew together as she fiddled with her controls.
"We're still picking up emissions from the area of the dead star. It's growing faint as we move away, but... ah, there!" She did things with the amplifiers.
A tremulous, desperate voice filtered through the speaker. A familiar voice, made harmless now by increasing distance and hopelessness.
"DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE AGAIN! OH, PLEASE, PLEASE!"
No one on the bridge said anything. There was a crackle of static as a different source of distant energy from another star announced its own presence. Then a final, faint piping.
"SO LONELY ... OH, DON'T GO! DON'T ... DON..."
The voice vanished, swallowed down and digested by distance.
"It doesn't sound so dangerous now, does it, Mr. Spock?" Kirk whispered.
"The creature? No, Captain. Not now. But the danger behind it remains."
"If only the alien had tried to cooperate, to communicate instead of threaten..." He shook his head tiredly, beginning to feel the side effects of McCoy's ministrations as they rode down the elevator. He stared at the steady light set in its roof.
"What makes a thinking, intelligent being act in such a fashion?"
"Who knows, Captain? We know not where it comes from. And we do not even know what makes certain men or Vulcans act the way they do. The creature's instincts, in the final analysis, are not so incomprehensible - or even alien."
"Now you're acting unnecessarily rational, Spock."
"To me, Captain," Spock replied, "that is a contradiction in terms."
"You know," said Kirk abruptly, "I think I can feel my hands again. They're beginning to tingle slightly."
He felt a pressure on his upper right shoulder.
"What was that?" Turning his head slightly he saw that they were entering Sick Bay. "Bones, what have you done to me now?" McCoy smiled down at him reassuringly.
"You're coming out of shock, Jim. I just gave you a good dose of something to keep your mind off it. If I didn't, despite the local anesthetic, in a few minutes those hands would do more than just tingle slightly."
"Shock? What do you mean, shock? I'm not in shock, Spock." McCoy had to grin. "And nothing you slipped me, Bones, is going to make me go un..."
PART II
YESTERYEAR
(Adapted from a script by D. C. Fontana)
VI
A world of silvery sky.
There seemed to be no oceans; but they were there, rolling and heaving under the shining clouds. There seemed to be no deserts; yet they existed, too. Dry, bone dry, and inhospitable, and old. There seemed to be no green forests or rolling hills. True, they were rare; but they too held a real existence.
There only seemed to be sky.
There was a peculiar atmospheric aura to this world - a kind of shimmer in the stratosphere that rippled and flowed with strange effects - other than merely meteorological.
Kirk finished his glass of reconstituted rombouton juice, prepared on a distant South Pacific isle on Earth itself, and studied the image on the viewscreen before him. He touched a button on the arm of the command chair and leaned over to direct his voice into the open grid.
"Captain's Log, stardate..." He burped, rather loudly, and looked around in mild embarrassment. Everyone on the bridge studiously avoided looking back at him. But at the helm, Sulu made a sound suspiciously like a stifled chuckle.
"You find our approach maneuvers amusing, Mr. Sulu?" Kirk was not in the best of moods. His newly regenerated skin on his hands itched something fierce.
"No, sir," deadpanned Sulu in return. He examined the readouts of the navigation computer most intently.
Satisfied that dignity had been maintained, Kirk hit the switch once more. "Erase that last," he muttered, then began again.
"Captain's Log, Stardate 5373.4." He paused, formed his thoughts.
"After an unexpected delay of some substantial awkwardness..."
"What was that I once heard you say about my tendency to understate, Captain?" came Spock's quiet voice from the area of the library-computer console.
"Quiet, Mr. Spock. I'm recording. Or trying to." He hit the unlucky switch again, irritably. "Cancel that last.
"Captain's Log, stardate 5373.4
After an unexpected delay of some substantial awkwardness..." he glared around, but this time no one saw fit to interpose a comment, "...we resumed our original course and are now lying in orbit around the planet of the time vortex.
"Commander Spock and I will land to carry out basic research for the Institute of Galactic History, in conjunction with and in support of similar research to be conducted by historians Jan Grey, Loom Aleek-om, and Ted Erickson.
"Dr. Leonard McCoy will also accompany us, as..." He held the panic button down and looked back to where Dr. McCoy was standing, idly observing the view of the planet rotating lazily below. "How do you want to go into the record on this, Bones?"
"What?" McCoy dragged his attention away from the fascinating image of the time planet. "Oh, might as well play it linear, Jim. 'Interested onlooker' will do. I'm not hunting for academic credits."
"Attaboy, Bones. I thought you'd say something like that." Kirk let the pause switch up. "...as interested onlooker." Satisfied, he switched off the log and thumbed a communicator switch.
"Historians Grey, Aleek-om, and Erickson report to the transporter room, please. We are ready for descent" He flipped the communicator off and rose.
"Lieutenant Sulu?" The younger officer glanced up from the helm. "You're in command in my absence."
"Yes, sir," Sulu replied. He hesitated, then spoke quickly, earnestly. "I sure wish I was going down with you, sir. I've heard a great deal about the Guardian of Forever."
Spock and McCoy were waiting at the elevator, and Kirk moved to join them.
"It can be very interesting at times, Mr. Sulu - that's true. It can also be infernally dull. Either way, you know the regulations. No one is permitted on the surface outside the reception station except authorized research personnel and Starfleet officers with the rank of Lt. Commander and above." He smiled.
"You'll be there in a couple of years, Lieutenant."
When they'd left, Sulu looked back at Uhura.
"Somehow, Uhura, I get the impression the captain's not terribly enthusiastic about this expedition."
Uhura replied while taking the opportunity - now that the commanding officers were absent - to touch up her makeup. "I suppose even the most exciting of pasts can grow dull with repetition. Seeing a famous person or witnessing an important historical event could be offset by bad smells and unsanitary plumbing.
"Besides, you can blame him for being a bit blase after what we just went through with that - that thing on the fringe?" She whistled. "Substantial awkwardness ... wow!"
***
The three historians were already waiting in the main transporter room when Kirk, Spock, and McCoy arrived. All appeared outwardly composed, but their faces betrayed the excitement they were feeling. Two had made the trip to the surface once before.
Their anticipation was understandable - history was their chosen profession. The discovery of the Time Planet - and the subsequent development of the Guardian of Forever and the Time Gate as a research tool - had been to the study of galactic history what the invention of the warp-drive had been to interstellar travel. Kirk could empathize with their special excitement, even if he couldn't wholly share in it.
Of the three, Erickson and Grey were human, Erickson was a small, intense man in his mid-forties, with thinning grey hair cut in bangs in the front - Vulcan style. His limbs seemed to be in constant motion, like the legs of a millipede. The most noticeable facet of his personality was his finding everything, absolutely everything, to be "fine, just fine" - and said so.
Jan Grey was slightly younger, taller and she had a pleasant narrow face that was now glowing with inner anticipation. Both humans wore plain grey jumpsuits emblazoned with the crossed Ionic column and short spade of physical history. They carried elaborate tricorders in shoulder harness.
The third member of the official research party, Loom Aleek-om was neither human nor Vulcan. The native of Aurelia stood head and shoulders above Spock, though he was thinner and lighter than any of them, even Grey.
His wings he kept neatly folded along the line of his back. Short arms ended in a spread of delicately taloned claws, which could manipulate the extremely fine controls on his own, smaller tricorder.
Tattooed on his beak was an intricate scroll - sign of manhood - above which wide, black eyes shone piercingly. They were in startling contrast to his brilliant gold and blue-green plumage.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Kirk smiled, "are you ready?" A rhetorical question. Erickson couldn't resist waving his pudgy arms in reply anyway.
"Ready?" he chirped, feigning disbelief. "We've been ready for days, for months for this minute, Captain! First we encounter that terrible monster and I thought we'd never get here at all. Then more days of unexpected travel and waiting. And you want to know if we're ready?"
"I do not believe I shall ever understand this extraordinary affectation of humans," mused Spock as they took their places in the transporter alcove, "for answering a simple, direct question with half a dozen inane ones."
"Don't worry, Spock," replied Kirk, scratching at his newly grown right palm, "it's not contagious."
"I sincerely hope not, Captain," said Spock fervently.
Beaming down was convenient and quick, though uneventful. They missed the spectacular sights of shuttling down through the silver atmosphere.
No one would miss a descent to the dry, semidesert section they would eventually arrive at, however.
Oddly, very little was known of the early civilizations of the Time Planet itself. Nor of how its inhabitants were able to unite a seething infinitude of time lines and tie them to a single point on their world. Nor why.
Oh, the usual reasons were given ... curiosity sparked them, and the spirit of scientific exploration. But Kirk and many others couldn't help but believe that the builders of such an incredible device as the Guardian of Forever must have had some other, unknown, more potent reason for constructing it.
There was irony on a grand scale present, too. For in tying together thousands upon thousands of time lines, the builders of the Guardian of Forever had apparently neglected to tie in their own. So historians could use the Guardian to research the reasons behind any great invention - except the Guardian.
A distant chance existed that this was not in fact the case, that the time line of the Guardian's inventors was in truth accessible. But if so, it had not yet been discovered. It's builders had covered their own past too well.
The research party materialized at the modest, clean reception station of the Historical Institute. The reception port was fully automated, proceeding on the logic that machines couldn't be bribed. Anyone attempting to beam down to another part of the planet, illegally, would have found himself materialized instead - thanks to elaborate transporter intercepts - inside one of the well-armed armored fortresses that circled the time planet with unceasing, never-tiring vigilance.
The station was near the southern sector of the best preserved portion of the massive urban ruins that rose near the Guardian. The city of Oyya, all two thousand square kilometers of it, was itself a formidable subject for historical and archaeological study.
Excavations had revealed that at one time the city was even greater in extent. And there were ruins of other enormous cities scattered around the planet, many even larger than Oyya. But none were so well preserved.
Had the Time Planet, then, once been severely overpopulated? Was the Time Gate a last, desperate means of finding a way to relieve population pressure before it overwhelmed its creators? There was evidence to support such a theory.
Most particularly, despite the unquestionably high degree of civilization attained on this world, there was no hint, no sign that its inhabitants had ever discovered a drive capable of carrying them from star to star. And there were no other planets, uninhabitable or otherwise, in the Time Planet's system. It didn't have even a single moon.
The Time Planet was alone in space. Its visionaries and explorers had been forced to go adventuring in time.
/> The automatic checkpoints at the reception station were thorough and efficient. As soon as they'd cleared, they were met at the exit lounge by the head of the Institute's main station on the planet, Dr. Vassily.
Dr. Vassily was elderly, silver haired, scintillating of mind, very female, and built like a hockey puck. Notwithstanding, she had the voice of a pixyish eleven-year-old.
She invited them into the nearby central building, a spartan yet comfortable facility, for a light snack and some heavy conversation. Visitors were still a rarity on the Time Planet.
Brandied tea, cake - the tea was good, even if reconstituted. Somehow, though, reconstituted brandied tea, in all its varied brands and types, never approached the real thing. Of course, the natural product was far beyond the financial reach of pioneer historians - however revered and respected.
Kirk forced himself to make easy conversation with the good doctor. It wasn't hard; she was fascinating. But before long Erickson was squirming like a jellyfish with the fidgets, Aleek-om was beginning to flap his wings nervously, sending feathers into everyone's tea, and even the normally imperturbable Jan Grey was showing signs of severe impatience.
"We certainly appreciate your hospitality, Dr. Vassily," Kirk said smoothly and honestly. "But as you can probably tell, my professional charges are anxious to be about their job."
"Of course," she nodded sagely. "Thoughtless of me. I've been working here for so many years I'd forgotten what the experience of a first trip to the Gate means to outsiders." Her voice turned brisk and workmanlike.
"There's a ground car waiting for you outside in the motor-pool hangar. Take the black and yellow one. I've had it pre-checked and fueled for you." She rose, her coveralls falling in shapeless wrinkles around her stout form, and walked them to the door. It stood open to the dry desert air. The climate here sucked moisture from unprepared bodies, but the temperature was not as severe as on other parts of the Time Planet.
She directed her attention to Aleek-om. "By the way, Loom, what time line are you going to search out?" Aleek-om's upper and lower beak clicked several times in rapid succession - a sign of humor among his kind.